Blockbuster officially dead, closing last 300 stores

Dish Network who owns Blockbuster, announced on Wednesday that the video rental service would be ending both its retail and mail DVD distribution operations by early-January 2014. Blockbuster will close its 300 remaining U.S.-based retail locations and distribution centers at that time. The Blockbuster By Mail DVD distribution service will end in mid-December, but will continue to serve existing customers until it does.

Dish Network will keep the brand name however, as well as several of its key assets. For instance they will keep the company’s video library, which Dish will use to strengthen its Blockbuster @Home service for Dish customers. It will also keep the Blockbuster on Demand streaming service alive for the general market. So there is a future, just not for the stores.

Things may not be as rosy for the company as they once were, but it looks like they will try to carry on in other forms. Blockbuster was never the same with the rise of the DVD and things got worse when Netflix arrived, It was bought by Dish Network in a 2011 bankruptcy auction. In 2002, Blockbuster had a market cap of $5 billion. When dish bought it the chain had 1,500 stores and 15,000 employees. Now it has about 300 remaining stores and abour 2,800 employees who will be affected.